Your lordship has but another step to make, and from the patron of wit, you may become its tyrant; and oppress our little reputations with more ease than you now protect them.  But these, my lord, are designs, which I am sure you harbour not, any more than the French king is contriving the conquest of the Swissers.  It is a barren triumph, which is not worth your pains; and would only rank him amongst your slaves, who is already,

  MY LORD,

    Your Lordship’s most obedient,
      And most faithful servant,
        JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes: 
1.  The patron, whom Dryden here addresses, was the famous John Wilmot,
   Earl of Rochester, the wittiest, perhaps, and most dissolute, among
   the witty and dissolute courtiers of Charles II.  It is somewhat
   remarkable, and may be considered as a just judgment upon the poet,
   that he was, a few years afterwards, way-laid and severely beaten
   by bravoes, whom Lord Rochester employed to revenge the share which
   Dryden is supposed to have had in the Essay on Satire.  The reader
   is referred to the life of the author for the particulars of this
   occurrence, which is here recalled to his recollection, as a
   striking illustration of the inutility, as well as meanness, of ill
   applied praise; since even the eulogy of Dryden, however liberally
   bestowed and beautifully expressed, failed to save him from the
   most unmanly treatment at the hands of the worthless and heartless
   object, on whom it was wasted.  It is melancholy to see Dryden, as
   may be fairly inferred from his motto, piqueing himself on being
   admitted into the society of such men as Rochester, and enjoying
   their precarious favour.  Mr Malone has remarked, that even in the
   course of the year 1673, when this dedication came forth, Rochester
   entertained the perverse ambition of directing the public favour,
   not according to merit, but to his own caprice.  Accordingly, he
   countenanced Settle in his impudent rivalry of Dryden, and wrote a
   prologue to the “Empress of Morocco,” when it was exhibited at
   Whitehall.  Perhaps, joined to a certain envy of Dryden’s talents,
   the poet’s intimacy with Sheffield Earl of Mulgrave gave offence to
   Rochester.  It is certain they were never afterwards reconciled; and
   even after Rochester’s death, Dryden only mentions his once valued
   patron, as “a man of quality whose ashes he will not
   disturb.”—­Essay on the Origin and Progress of Satire, prefixed
   to Juvenal.  It would seem, however, that this dedication was very
   favourably received by Rochester, since a letter of Dryden’s to
   that nobleman is still extant, in which he acknowledges a
   flattering return of compliment from his Lordship in exchange for
   it.